Thursday, October 10, 2013, I’m sitting in a slice of sunshine on the couch in my temporary living room in Joshua Tree eating about 3-5 ice pops, waiting. Alexis and Lauren are on their way down the coast and into the desert from Humboldt.

They arrived a day later than planned and I was really ready for company and excitedly awaited their arrival.

So there they are in the dusty distance barreling down the dirt road in the Subaru to my house on Star lane. I went out to wait in the driveway, said “Hi!” And Alexis yells “you’re so tan!”

So, as girls do, we catch up, unpack, find places for stuff and drink bottles of beer.

Later we decided to go to Pappy’s in Pioneertown to get some dinner. We get into the embarrassment mobile and head up at sunset and take some pics on the way.

We park out back and notice a huge tour bus and think nothing of it. Inside the bouncer is asking if we are here for the show and if so it’s $20 a person. They look and see Phosphorescent written on the chalk board and get all excited. Like, no way!
So we ask him about an ATM and he said the bar could help us. Then he’s all Pssst wait come here… And he proceeds to give us 3 wristbands and saying “shhh don’t tell anyone.” Such a sweetheart. =)

We order dinner and drinks but this changes everything! Lauren is upset with her choice of shoes and Alexis wants to go back and get a little more dressed up. So we make a mad dash back to JT and change and get cuted up.

Back to Pappy’s – we are tired but marvel at the coincidence of this band being here tonight of all nights. So we drink tequila to lift us up a bit.

They played a great show, we made friends with a goofy-faced bashful moose head on the wall and then just kinda hung around. We met a bunch of nice Germans traveling along California and a few others. Lauren started talking to the drummer and Alexis and I ended up outside by the tour bus smoking hash oil and joints with the other band members.

I then proceed to follow some couple from Hermosa Beach to a random very western house in the back of the pioneertown and retrieve fire wood to build a bonfire in a pit in the middle of nowhere.

I get bored and return to the bar to find my friends. Alexis and I sit outside smoking under the heat lamps because it’s COLD at night in the hi dez. Here we meet this other musician, Adam, a producer from Canada who says he’s working with Theophilus London. He’s wearing large glasses and looks kind’ve like if Beck and Rick Moranis had a love child.

I end up talking to him inside about airstream trailers and he doesn’t want to drive back to Palm Springs tonight. I said he could hang out with us but we have knives and to not try any funny stuff. Meanwhile, the bust of Pappy behind the bar observes us. This conversation sparks a paranoia inside Alexis’s high mind so while he leaves to go to the bathroom, she suggests that we just plain leave.

I say yeah sure why not? Just us girls, reuniting on the other side of the country. So we get up to make our stealth departure and turn a corner and there he is. Ahh!
We turn the other way. He is carrying a 6 pack of Red Stripe and he is gaining on us!

We run to the car in the back lot.
“Where’s Lauren?!”
“Out front we’ll grab her!”

Get in the car hurry up go and we round the corner and pull up front to Lauren and the drummer kinda making out in a bramble bush.
“Get in the car we got go now!!”
“What? Why?”
“Just get in!”
Lauren gets into the car and as we drive away, he runs toward the car and reaches a hand out and touches the passenger side door and we all scream.

So we are all in the car driving away into remote desert wilderness in the dark on the way back to 62 and civilization. Everyone in the car is yelling.

“What the FUCK?? Why are we running? What’s going on?”
“I dunno we just had to leave! We had to get out of there!”
“What the fuck. I liked that guy! Why are we leaving?”
“Aww man I feel like such a dick…”

It continues to go on like this as we get past 62 onto Alta Loma in the dark. It’s then that I notice a car behind us. It’s 1:30am in the middle of nowhere on a Thursday night… I speed up and the car behind us speeds up. I make sure it’s not a cop. Lauren is yelling to go back to the bar and Alexis is feeling kinda bad in front and I say, “I think we are being followed…”

I turn right and it turns right. I speed up and it speeds up. I slow down to maybe let the car pass us but it doesn’t. Alexis and I start to get nervous and says “Holy shit I think we are being followed!”

I turn onto another street and then into a kind of empty parking lot. It follows us. We all scream and I pull a U turn and speed out of there. Lauren is no longer mad about ditching the dude. We are all like “Holy shit let’s get the fuck out of here!” I pull out all the tricks I’ve seen in films and TV and speed out, turn off my lights and make a bunch of turns (sometimes accidentally signaling?) off the more major roads and into a neighborhood and we sit for  a bit in the dark, having finally lost them. At this point, I’m all turned around from all these random turns to throw off our follower, so I look up on the GPS how to get back home and we make it home peacefully.

We get inside, still reeling from the high-speed car chase and find more alcohol to drink and Lauren smiles sweetly and asks, “Who wants eggies?” =)